| The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century | |
|---|---|
Early cover art for Century #1, by O'Neill |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Top Shelf Productions (US) Knockabout Comics (UK) |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | Superhero |
| Publication date | May 2009 – present |
| Number of issues | 3 |
| Main character(s) | Mina Murray Allan Quatermain Orlando A. J. Raffles Thomas Carnacki |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Alan Moore |
| Artist(s) | Kevin O'Neill |
| Letterer(s) | Todd Klein |
| Colorist(s) | Ben Dimagmaliw |
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century is the third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill.[1][2] Co-published by Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics in the US and UK respectively, Century will be published in three distinct 72-page squarebound comics. Part 1 was released on May 13, 2009. Part 2 was released on July 20, 2011.
Contents |
The third volume will be a 216-page epic spanning almost a hundred years and entitled 'Century'. Divided into three 72-page chapters, each a self-contained narrative to avoid frustrating cliff-hanger delays between episodes, it will take place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in the present, twenty-first, century. Characters and themes will thread through all three episodes, which will particularly see the characters of Mina, Allan and Orlando feature prominently, alongside W. Somerset Maugham's Aleister Crowley-analogue Oliver Haddo and Iain Sinclair's London-bound time traveller Andrew Norton, from Slow Chocolate Autopsy.[3]
Moore has stated that the move from DC Comics/WildStorm/America's Best Comics has been liberating, and that the work on Century is "as if we feel freed from the conventions of boys' adventure comics," allowing for a work that is "a lot more atmospheric," building slowly to "a tremendously bloody climax."[4]
In 1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion, Captain Nemo is on his deathbed in Lincoln Island. He asks his estranged daughter, Janni Dakkar, to resume his name and calling after his death. Janni refuses and leaves her father's side. Spying a passing ship, she swims towards it and stows away upon it. The ship takes her to London where she takes up employment at a wharf side hotel under the name Jenny Diver. Arriving on the same ship as Janni is Jack MacHeath a.k.a. Jack the Ripper, who is a direct descendant of the 18th-century highwayman MacHeath a.k.a. Mack the Knife, and immediately takes to murdering prostitutes again, one of whom looks suspiciously like Louise Brooks.
Meanwhile, the occult detective and second League member Thomas Carnacki has visions of bloodshed on the waterfront and of a secret cabal of magicians convening to plot the creation of a Moonchild destined to bring forth the end of the world. Mina believes these visions may be connected with the upcoming coronation of King George V. Intelligence chief Mycroft Holmes advises them to investigate both, and suggests that the bloodshed on the waterfront is the work of MacHeath, whom he believes to be Jack the Ripper.
While investigating one of the men Carnacki saw in his vision, Orlando, Quatermain and Carnacki stumble upon the circle of magicians, who claim that what Carnacki saw either is wrong, or has not happened yet. Carnacki inadvertently gives the magicians a crucial piece of information that they need to create the Moonchild. At the same time, Mina and Raffles consult Andrew Norton, a time traveler bound by the confines of the city of London, who speaks in riddles that hint at the Harry Potter series, war in Iraq and the July 7 bombings, but otherwise offers little help. He vanishes to another time, promising that he will meet Mina again in 1969.
Janni is raped by the drunken patrons of her hotel, and is later aided to her room by Suki Tawdry. She fires a flare to summon the Nautilus (which Suki, as narrator, has been referring to obliquely as The Black Raider) docked nearby.
The following day MacHeath is about to be hanged without trial as Mycroft is worried that a trial might bring to light the involvement of the 14th Earl of Gurney in the original Ripper murders. MacHeath sings his last plea from the gallows while the Nautilus, now painted black as per Nemo's orders, and with his skull nailed to forecastle, emerges and destroys every building on the waterfront, save for Janni's hotel. The crew of the Nautilus descends upon the waterfront to loot, murder and rape while Janni, now the captain of the Nautilus, orders that the hotel patrons be killed slowly. This, and Suki's reference to the Nautilus as The Black Raider recall the song Pirate Jenny.
At the last moment, a message arrives from the Earl of Gurney confessing to all the Ripper crimes. MacHeath is released and the League head to the waterfront to try and push the pirates back. While the men fight Mina comes face to face with Janni who recognises her. Janni says her father had nothing but bad things to say about Mina, which renders her worthy of respect to Janni. She bids Mina farewell, inviting Mina to join her should Mina ever decide to forsake government work. When Mina asks her name, Janni says she is "no one".
The issues ends with Mina expressing frustration with the League, while MacHeath and Suki sing and dance to a modified version of "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" (like the rest of the songs in the issue, the basis for this song is taken from Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera).
In 1969, almost sixty years after "What Keeps Mankind Alive", and about 11 years after the events of The Black Dossier, Mina, Allan, and Orlando return to Britain from Lincoln Island after being contacted by the Blazing World to investigate the murder of Basil Fotherington-Thomas by the cult of Oliver Haddo and to reunite with Norton (from Slow Chocolate Autopsy). Mina is coming to grips with the problems of immortality, and Allan and Orlando have begun a sexual relationship. They quickly discover that Haddo’s spirit has transferred to Kosmo Gallion (from The Avengers episode “Warlock”), and he intends to transfer yet again to the body of Terner (from Performance). The League's encounter with the mysterious Andrew Norton has numerous cryptic warnings that are difficult to discern. He also says that by the time they reunite in 2009 it will be too late.
Meanwhile Jack Carter is hired by mob leader Vince Dakin to discover who murdered Basil as well. Carter's interrogations lead him to the cult of Gallion.
Terner holds a concert at Hyde Park in honor of Basil. Mina, Orlando and Allan attempt to stop the ritual of the transfer from occurring but Mina realizes the actual ritual is occurring at Gallion's shop. Mina drops Tadukic Acid Diethylamide 26, and meets Haddo on the astral plane. Haddo overpowers Mina, though he reveals that his possession of Terner will not effect his planned birth of the antichrist. Carter meanwhile kills Gallion. With his plan gone awry, he is forced to enter the body of Tom Riddle (of the Harry Potter series). When Mina comes down from her trip, she is driven mad by bats that remind her of Dracula, and is taken away in an ambulance. Riddle meanwhile leaves through King's Cross through Platform 9 3/4 to Hogwarts.
Eight years later, in 1977, Allan and Orlando have still not reunited with Mina, who was their only link to the Blazing World. In a club where the band Zuki and the Tawdries play the song "Immoral Earnings (In The U.K)" Orlando and Allan sulk. Now female and sporting a mohawk Orlando grows tired of Allan who has succumbed to his previous addictions to drugs (even attempting to pawn Excalibur) and leaves Allan, planning to join the Army once she is a man again.
The third chapter brings events to "a head spectacularly and horribly in 2009" in present-day London.[5] Moore has mentioned that "the basic institution of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will be completely unrecognizable,"[6] being reduced in scope to a single person.[7] Summarising in microcosm his approach to the whole third volume, Moore notes that
| “ | I suppose that if there’s an overall moral to this third volume, it's 'Times change.' Invariably, throughout human history, that has been the lesson: 'Times change.'
And I think right now we’re going through a period of change, quite violent and rapidly, at least in my summation of the moment. And hopefully, the speeded-up view of the twentieth-century-to-present in this volume will feel quite appropriate.[6] |
” |
Thematically, Moore has stated that the third section "is actually for me more difficult than the other two, because I know quite a bit about Victorian culture or Edwardian culture or even the culture of the 1950s and 1960s, but I know absolutely nothing about contemporary culture."[7] Nonetheless, by judicious use of allusions and allowing, according to O'Neill, "a quite famous character [to] walk through the background without being named," the duo intend to hint at more modern fictional characters and elements of popular culture, just as they alluded to Victorian and 1950s fictions.[2] In particular, Moore intends to include Iain Sinclair's semi-autobiographical Slow Chocolate Autopsy character Andrew Norton, the Prisoner of London in all three issues, giving him "a slightly larger role in the third part" intersecting with the League near King's Cross Station.[8]
The modern-day set third issue will therefore see Orlando, now enlisted in the British Army, involved in the war in Q'umar (The West Wing's Iran/Iraq analogue[5][9]) where Corporal Cuckoo from Gerald Kersh's short story: "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?" will make an appearance. Moore has said that the war scenes will demonstrate "what kind of creature Orlando is after these thousands of years."[10] In England, the birth of the 'moonchild'/antichrist foretold/foreshadowed/encouraged during the first two issues will apparently feature prominently, intending to commence "[h]is promised aeon of unending terror... starting with North London."[11] Meanwhile, in Kashmir a Sikh terrorist who claims to be Nemo's great-grandchild[12] is equipped "with a now-nuclear-armed submarine [and waging] a holy war against Islam."[11]
Moore has already expressed his intention to include references to, among others, a number of TV programmes— many of which he is only peripherally aware of[9]—including The West Wing, 24, Armando Iannucci's Time Trumpet[7] Nathan Barley and the British Comic Magazine Viz. He has also expressed his intention to include background details such as a film starring Vince Chase (from Entourage), and a reference to a band called DriveSHAFT (as featured on Lost).[9] Also appearing in this issue will be Prime Minister Tom Davis and ("his political fixer") Director of Communications Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It, Moore says "I actually had to compose a stream of Malcolm Tucker swearing, which is a lot harder than it looks. In counterpoint, one of the characters in the foreground is talking in Shakespearean iambic couplets."[13]
Chapter 3 was set to be released April/May 2011[14] but is now simply listed as a future release.[11]
Accompanying each of the three issues is an episode of a text-story entitled Minions of the Moon written in the style of a 1960s "new wave" science fiction-type story, that ties together a range of lunar stories, written 'John Thomas' (a pseudonym of John Sladek, and slang term for the penis) for Lewd Worlds Of Science Fiction (Brian Aldiss' one-time pun name for New Worlds magazine) edited by James Colvin (another real-life former pseudonym, here that of Moore's friend —and New Worlds editor— Michael Moorcock).[7] The story is presented as if written in 1969[15]
Part One begins with an unnamed patient at an unidentified point in time, it then elaborates on some details of how Orlando became immortal and references 2001: A Space Odyssey. Following this there is a section that continues directly from the main story. The next section features the start of The Story of O revealing the identity of O. The next section provides details of a superhero team that Mina was part of in 1964, whose members include Golden Age British hero Captain Universe, who has recently defeated Fletcher Hanks' Stardust the Super Wizard.[7] The final section concerns Mina's journey to the Moon with the Golliwog, under instructions from Prospero in the Blazing World, who fears that the Lunar War will force mankind's lunar residents to relocate to an area which the Blazing World "powers that be" do not wish them to reach - yet.
Parts Two and Three will reference a range of lunar stories: Lucian's True History and Baron Münchhausen;[16] Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone, Dan Dare, Otis Adelbert Kline's Maza of the Moon, Planet Comics' Mysta Of The Moon, George Griffith's A Honeymoon in Space, Marvel's Uatu the Watcher, the Great Moon Hoax and The Clangers;[7] the works of Jules Verne and Georges Méliès. The story features combat between the "Amazon Women on the Moon", the Selenites, the insectoid residents of the Moon from H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. He also wishes to make a few references to The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street, since both shows are set in Baltimore, where Verne's astronauts hail from.[15]
Two characters introduced in the very first Issue shall make reapparences: Dr. Selwyn Cavor and Professor Moriarty shall according to Moore become quite important to the plot.[17]
Each volumes of the graphic novel were scheduled to be released April/May for three successive years from 2009-11. April 2009 1910 was released. 1969 was released July 2011. 2009 is scheduled as a future release.
Reception to Century has been mixed to positive, critics such as Chris Sims criticize the growing amount of indiscernible references as a hindrance to the plot elements.[18]
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